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Crematorium gets thumbs-down from Mississauga council

City says the site is too close to homes, but the funeral home argues their technology is clean and much needed in a cultural community that relies on cremation.

Ian Swanson, who lives next door to the Benisasia Funeral Home, prefers cremation himself but doesn't want it going on so close to his own home, arguing that air pollution in the area is already hazardous enough. (SAN GREWAL / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Jyoti and Rick Benisasia stand in front of their Malton funeral home with their young son. They want to build a crematorium, but some local residents and the City of Mississauga have rejected the plan. (SAN GREWAL / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Mississauga council heeded the advice of planning staff Tuesday and turned down an application by a Malton funeral home to build a crematorium.

The issue is a political hot potato in Malton, a once predominantly white community that has been transformed over the past 30 years.

According to Statistics Canada, the neighbourhood at the centre of the controversy, about three blocks north of the Benisasia Funeral Home, had 4,420 residents in 2006. Some 82 were per cent were visible minorities, with South Asians accounting for 55 per cent.

The city worries that too many of those residents live too close to the proposed crematorium site, presenting environmental safety issues. However, most of the area’s residents belong to faiths that have traditionally used cremation in their last rites.

Just 500 metres west of the Benisasia Funeral Home is the Malton Masjid on Airport Rd., where on Wednesday afternoon a bunch of Muslim boys were running around in white cotton kurta pajamas.

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The mosque is just south of the Great Punjab Business Centre, a large two-storey plaza with about 60 businesses catering to the South Asian community.

Just south of that is the Sri Guru Singh Sabha, a large Sikh gurdwara, or temple.

Across the street from the mosque, Inder Singh, manning the counter of an Indian jewellery shop, expresses surprise at the council decision.

“There’s no harm in cremation,” he says, standing behind a wall of gold filigree earrings and necklaces. Even if they don’t do it here, they’re going to do it somewhere.” He mentions the funeral home 10 kilometres away where his brother-in-law was recently cremated.

Going elsewhere to be cremated suits Ian Swanson just fine.

“I’m going to be cremated, my wife and I,” says the retired Air Force man, who lives in Malton Mobile Homes, a trailer park on Derry Rd. next door to the funeral home. “But I wouldn’t want to have my ashes, or the fumes, blowing onto somebody’s yard.”

His small rear yard looks directly onto the Benisasia property, where the proposed crematorium would be built on the far side.

Like hundreds of other nearby residents, Swanson is concerned about adding more pollutants to the air, which he says is already choked with byproducts from the jets taking off a kilometre to the south, at Pearson International.

He says South Asian residents in the subdivision immediately north also don’t want a crematorium next door.

But Benisasia’s owners have repeatedly stated that today’s cremation technology is extremely clean and would meet the toughest environmental standards.

Jyoti Benisasia says that of their clientele, “99.9 per cent” want cremation.

She’s standing with husband Rick and their young son in front of the family business, where a Sikh funeral has just ended. About two dozen cars are leaving in a procession for the cremation, at a site about eight kilometres away.

“It’s a family business,” she adds. “We work here. Why would we do anything to harm ourselves, the people we employ, or our clients and neighbours?”

Rick Benisasia is quick to point out that it’s not just members of the local Indo-Canadian community who want a local crematorium.

“Lots of white families want cremations and support what we’re trying to do. Cremations are becoming more and more popular. They’re more economical and people just prefer it.”

Councillor Bonnie Crombie says the idea that the crematorium controversy is all about the local cultural dynamic is a “red herring.”

“It’s a big business opportunity,” she says. “More and more people want to be cremated.”

The only reason the application was voted down Tuesday, she says, is the site’s close proximity to homes. Mississauga’s new rules, which came into effect after Benisasia’s application, state that a crematorium must be 300 metres from the closest home. Benisasia is only about 70 metres away.

Crombie says she’s offered to show the owners other nearby sites that would be okay. She says the city won’t back down and that council “has given staff authority to defend our decision” at the Ontario Municipal Board.

Rick Benisasia says he welcomed Tuesday’s vote after a long wrangle, so the application can go on to an appeal to the OMB, which he is confident “will base their decision on facts.”

A second pre-hearing at the OMB, which rules on planning disputes, is set for Monday.

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